This study investigates the grammar of Spanish
and Polish heritage speakers
in Canada: Speakers who grew up speaking their
family language at home,
where the community language is English.
Studies looking at the language
of heritage speakers investigate the stability
of language and how grammar
develops under reduced input conditions
(Benmamoun et al., 2010). The aim
of this work is to investigate the impact of
reduced input on a component
within the Null-Subject Parameter - the Overt
Pronoun Constraint (OPC)
(Montalbetti, 1984). The goal is to understand
the interpretations that
heritage speakers assign to overt pronouns in
very specific contexts.

The OPC is a restriction on an overt pronoun’s
possible coreferent. It
states the restrictions on this pronoun when
its coreferent is a quantified
expression (someone, who). As null-subject
languages, in Spanish and Polish
an overt pronoun in the subordinate clause
cannot be bound by a quantified
expression (Nadiei cree que élj/*i va a ganar
'No one believes that he will
win'). The overt pronoun needs to be free
within its binding domain.

Following Montalbetti (1984), I assume that all
quantifiers will be treated
equally. Moreover, following a generative
framework, it is assumed that
that the Null Subject Parameter is set early in
the grammars of these
null-subject heritage languages (Chomsky, 1981;
Jaeggli, 1982; Rizzi,
1982), and thus they will demonstrate
understanding of the interpretative
restrictions found with subordinate overt
pronouns with quantified antecedents.

Results from this study were gathered from four
groups of speakers with 20
participants in each group: Spanish heritage,
Spanish monolingual, Polish
heritage, Polish monolingual. Participants
completed two comprehension
tasks: a Picture-Matching task, and a
Sentence-Selection task. Both tasks
tested interpretation of the implicit knowledge
of the OPC with quantified
antecedents.

Results for the Picture-Matching task show that
advanced heritage speakers
understand the interpretative contrast present
with overt and null pronouns
within OPC contexts. However, heritage speakers
appear to have more
difficulty in the Sentence-Selection task: They
do not differentiate
between null and overt pronouns. Results
suggest lower-proficiency
participants have difficulty with the
reading/comprehension component of
the task, but the OPC remains in their
grammars.